


empty chairs at empty tables (where my friends will sing no more)

by lightningb0nes



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Brainwashing (sort of), Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Episode 66 Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, Loneliness, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Other, Spoilers, Stolen Century Spoilers, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 09:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11377584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningb0nes/pseuds/lightningb0nes
Summary: Lucretia watches her friends pass by, no recognition in their eyes, watches Merle lead his daughter away from her with an apologetic smile, watches Magnus marry a woman boisterous and loud enough to match him perfectly, watches Taako perform for adoring crowds. As far as anything goes, her friends are dead and gone, and Lucretia lives with the weight that she, for the first time in a century, is well and truly alone.(empty chairs at empty tables / now my friends are dead and gone)





	empty chairs at empty tables (where my friends will sing no more)

She keeps Davenport with her, because she cannot bear to force him through the real world- reduced to a blabbering mess because of her meddling, she keeps him with her. His life had been the mission, and he had  _ finally  _ succeeded, beaten the hunger, kept them all safe, and Lucretia had taken away every semblance of the captain. When the boys bring back the Oculus, she watches Davenport watch it, recognition,  _ power _ , just out of his grasp. She watches him struggle to remember, and she watches him fail.    


Lup is gone, too- she never sees her after she leaves her note.  _ Back Soon _ . Lucretia never knows what the edits did to her, but she sees that Taako doesn’t remember, blankly asks  _ who _ ? when her name is mentioned. Lucretia doesn’t see how it effects Lup, but she knows that she’s ripped away her brother, stolen every memory of their time together, stolen a century worth of time spent. Barry falls off the edge of the Starblaster, and for all she knows, Lucretia is the only person in the world with the memory of Lup’s grin, of the way Lup fought, the way she  _ danced _ , the way she left everything she loved because she could not bear for others to suffer. Taako comes to Lucretia with Lup’s Umbrastaff in hand, and Lucretia’s heart breaks a little more than it already has. The Pheonix Fire Gauntlet is the first relic retrieved, Phandolin reduced to a sphere of black glass, and Lucretia cannot help but hope that Lup is watching, somewhere, and that she is proud. 

Barry is gone. Not dead, no, and Lucretia can’t be sure what he remembers, but she knows she has to hide, keep Fisher and it’s child away from him, because this can’t be for nothing- she can’t have done this for nothing. Lucretia keeps Barry at an arm’s length the best that she can, because failing isn’t an option for her, not anymore. She fails at retrieving the bell, loses her youth because of it, and every part of her wants to scream when she sends the boys off to what might as well be their funereal, and every part of her wants to break when they come back without Magnus. 

Before, she checked on Merle whenever she was sad. She sees his children, his wife, how restless he grows, yearning for something he does not quite remember. He never loses his sense of adventure, and Lucretia watches himself put distance between him and his wife, his children, leaving for a corner store and marching down the road past her. After she brings him in, he’s kind, if a little grossly flirtatious, but Lucretia holds her tongue the best she can. He was never happy with Hecuba, and now, with the man he used to love reduced to a running gag, a blabbering mess, a weight holds heavy in Lucretia’s heart with every come-on and joke. But he’s her friend, and as he always has, he worms his way past her guard and settles in her heart, a truly dear friend that she cannot bear to push away. She sends him to Goldcliff with an odd sort of wonder, because he always loved the sash, even when used for wrong. When he comes back with a hollow sort of pain in his eyes, but still manages to laugh and grin, she is proud. 

Before, she went to Magnus’s wedding, handed his wife a gift of flowers enchanted to stay fresh forever. He’s a hero in his town, because he’s  _ Magnus _ , and of course he couldn’t let wrongs go un-righted, rushing in without Davenport, Barry, and Lup to think, without Taako at his back, wand at the ready, without Merle to heal him when he needs. When he leaves, Lucretia arrives  _ minutes  _ too late to save his wife, to save his father in law, and she hides from him, sits at Fisher’s tank and cries and cries until she cannot cry any more. After she brings him back, it takes her at least a week until she can look at him in the eye. He laughs, and is boisterous, and oversteps boundaries that she doesn’t want to have in the way he always has, and Fisher loves him, as it always has. Magnus makes Carey laugh, makes Killian roll her eyes with fondness, makes Avi chuckle in the dry way he does. Magnus cries when he hears Johann’s music, Magnus makes Lucas Miller inexplicably red-faced and flustered, Magnus makes her want to smile, and Lucretia doesn’t, because she cannot help but blame herself. Lucretia sends him to Refuge, and he comes back distrustful, comes back with a look on his face that Lucretia  _ understands _ , because of faced with his choice, she would have wanted to say yes too. He leans on Taako a little more, pulls away from Lucretia, and sits next to Fisher’s tank as often as he can, and Lucretia has never felt emptier inside. 

When she set up Taako’s show, she went to as many of the shows as she could manage. Always sat at the very back, sometimes stood even farther back, hood over her face and making sure she can’t be seen. She takes samples, sometimes, because she can’t help but miss his food, miss his jokes, his magic. She hears about Glamoursprings, that he’s gone missing, and her heart aches, because all she  _ ever  _ wanted was for him to be loved, loved like Lup loved him, like Magnus and Barry loved him, like Davenport and Merle loved him, like she loved him, but it falls apart and Lucretia can’t help but blame herself. After, he carries his sister’s Umbrastaff and it’s a slap in the face every time Lucretia sees it, a reminder of the awful things she’s done. After every mission, she sees more of the Taako she knew, more clever and more cunning and confident, more powerful and more determined. After Phandolin, he agrees to her terms lazily. After the Rockport Limited, he mentions a boy so smart he saw right through them, and Lucretia sees a sort of fondness that used to be reserved for Lup, for Magnus, for their team,  _ for her _ , in his eyes, and she sends someone to find the boy immediately. She sends him to Goldcliff, and he comes back with a grim determination on his face and a cherry blossom tucked into the brim of his hat. He finds his own relic in the Miller’s lab, and comes back with a sort of dopey look on his face, and Magnus says something offhand about a reaper that makes Lucretia have a panic attack that she barely contains until she’s alone. He seems the most affected by Magnus’s relic, but he goes to the Chug & Squeeze with someone who should not be on Lucretia’s base, but she sees how he looks at the man (the  _ reaper _ ) and she can’t bring herself to stop him. 

Before Fisher’s child, she is alone. Lucretia watches her friends pass by, no recognition in their eyes, watches Merle lead his daughter away from her with an apologetic smile, watches Magnus marry a woman boisterous and loud enough to match him perfectly, watches Taako perform for adoring crowds. As far as anything goes, her friends are dead and gone, and Lucretia lives with the weight that she, for the first time in a century, is well and truly alone. 

After Fisher’s child, Lucretia does her best to keep a cool face, to hold her head high, be aloof and unemotional, but they’re her family. They’re her family, and it’s been so long, and she can’t keep herself closed off forever, so they work their way in in the way they always have, jokes and words that don’t mean anything to them but mean  _ everything  _ to her. She’s not alone, but she  _ is _ , because they don’t know her, because she’s still keeping the truth under lock and key because she’s closer than ever, now. She hopes they’ll forgive her, once it’s all over. 

After Wonderland, things dissolve into chaos, and Lucretia is  _ so close _ , but her boys remember. Barry remembers, Magnus remembers, Merle remembers, Taako remembers,  _ Davenport  _ remembers. She doesn’t know what fate has befallen Lup, but they remember, and Lucretia smiles a smile she has not dared show in so long, so many years having passed since her family was last together- so she allows herself a moment to smile before she executes a plan that might make her lose everything, but she knows, no matter what, that this is her family, and if she has to face the Hunger, this is how she was always meant to do it. 

**Author's Note:**

> whats up my name is bones and the adventure zone Fucked Me Up, so i wanted to write something to kind of explain how i think lucretia must have felt? so this is half vent about My feelings about the episode, half looking into lucretia as a character. i love her, and this is NOT meant to villainize her whatsoever!!! 
> 
> title from les mis's _empty chairs at empty tables_ which is SUCH a lucretia song
> 
> my tumblr is [@lightningb0nes](http://http://lightningb0nes.tumblr.com/) and if you want to donate a few bucks and support me my ko-fi account is [here!](https://ko-fi.com/A3661QR0)


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